


After the Flood

by salvage



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-16
Updated: 2011-12-16
Packaged: 2017-10-27 10:29:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/294793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salvage/pseuds/salvage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pretend that the last ten seconds of the final episode of S1 didn't happen, and that Moriarty just left and that Sherlock and John went back to the flat after that whole incident. Sherlock and John deal with the fallout.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After the Flood

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written and posted to LJ in May 2011; I am archiving it here.

Sherlock finds a cab at 1 AM in the suburbs, somehow, and they ride home silently and Sherlock pays the cabbie and gives John an arm getting out in front of their house. He unlocks the front door, too, while John stands with his back pressed up against the dingy concrete-brick wall between their door and the long-closed café next door, staring at the street and the perfect circle of light that the streetlight makes on the sidewalk and the pavement and its reflection on the windows across the way.

“John,” Sherlock says, and John walks past him into the foyer and Sherlock shuts the door and locks it, and turns the deadbolt, and slides the door chain in place. John can’t remember him ever doing that before.

John walks up the stairs and sits down on their couch and Sherlock sits next to him and they stare at the fireplace for a while.

“Well,” Sherlock says.

“Yeah,” John says.

“I know you’re not all right at all, but are you sure there isn’t anything I can do?” Sherlock asks.

“Er, no, thanks very much, I think you’re set.” John knows he has to do something but he can’t remember what until Sherlock gets up and John sees him take his coat off and hang it on their coatrack. Even though they are sitting close enough to be touching, John’s weight on the couch doesn’t shift when Sherlock stands; the couch is so old and worn that the two cushions are each their own separate little concavity.

Sherlock looks at John for a long moment before going into his room, as though he is about to say something, but he doesn’t and he closes the door behind him and the room is silent and John is silent.

He wouldn’t take back anything he did, and he wouldn’t take back it happening. Well. Well he would take back everything that’s happened, he’d erase it from his mind and start out fresh and clean and new like a child if he could. But why even think about that, he asks himself. He knows those thoughts get you nowhere.

He’ll climb the stairs to his room in a moment. In a moment. In just another moment.

There is an explosion, it is rough gloved hands forcing his arms through the arm holes of a vest full of wires and C4, it is his arm around someone’s neck in a blue-lit, humid pool, and he’s threatening someone but he’s also snapping someone’s neck without remorse in a dark dry desert with just one arm tenderly curled under the man’s jaw and his gloved hands can feel the unattached lobe of the man’s ear when he twists violently to the right.

“John!” John has Sherlock’s wrist clenched in his fist and it feels so thin, Sherlock’s bones feel strong but the tendons under John’s fingertips are so fragile. His pulse is racing.

“Oh,” John says. He eases up his grip on Sherlock’s arm. “What?”

“You fell asleep on the couch,” Sherlock says. He is unreadable; his shirtsleeves are rolled up to the elbow. He is bent over, one hand braced on the back of the couch next to John’s neck, the other apparently having just touched John’s shoulder to wake him. John can feel the fear-sweat in his palms and the back of his neck and the small of his back and the insides of his thighs. Sherlock looks exhausted, in the half-light his eyes are ringed with shadows and his lips are parted as though he can’t exert the energy required to keep his jaw locked closed. “You want to let go of my arm?”

“Oh, sorry.” John’s knuckles crack as he releases Sherlock’s wrist. He stretches his hand a little for lack of a better thing to do. Sherlock straightens up and regards John with his puzzle-solving look. John sort of stares at his shoes. “I thought you were going to bed?”

“Yeah, couldn’t sleep.”

“You didn’t even try, your shoes are still on,” John says.

“Do you want to watch a bit of telly?”

John shrugs, his muscles ache and he sort of grimaces involuntarily. “Sure.”

Sherlock turns the TV a bit so they can see it better and puts on an all-night infomercial channel. He folds himself onto the couch next to John and tosses the remote onto the floor.

“Look, you can get the perfectly cut six pack you’ve always dreamed of,” John echoes the TV. “How do you think they get them to glisten like that?”

“Probably baby oil,” Sherlock replies absently. “Do you want to take your coat off?”

“I’m fine, thanks though.”

“Look, I am pretty sure that’s one of those things you’re supposed to do. Take your shoes and your coat off, I’ll get you a blanket.” Sherlock leans over the side of the couch and ruffles around until he pulls a bright orange fleece blanket out of the mess of pillows and books on the floor there.

John looks over. “Is that one of those police shock blankets?”

“Oh yeah, I have a whole collection,” Sherlock says. “I rather like the color.”

“Good god, Sherlock.” John leans forward and peels his coat off and tosses it onto the floor, and it takes him kind of a while to unlace his left shoe until Sherlock puts the blanket on the couch and kneels in front of him and deftly unlaces and removes both of John’s shoes, then his own, and places the pairs side by side next to the couch. John isn’t sure whether to thank him.

“Here,” Sherlock says. He flaps the blanket so that it unfolds and then awkwardly tucks it in around John. It is obvious he’s never done this before.

They go back to watching the exercise plan infomercial; it goes on for some time, short exhausting-looking demonstrations, customer testimonials, price knockdowns. Sherlock has curled himself onto the couch again, long legs folded up in front of his body, bent at the knees and sort of casually leaning to one side, propped on the arm of the couch. His feet seem on the verge of slipping off the cushion but somehow he stays, perfectly balanced. In the dark of the room, the television flickers on.

John wakes up. He is confused for a long moment as to whose shoulder his head is leaning on, if he is in his own apartment and not Sarah’s. He quickly moves away. “I’m sorry, I…”

“You looked so comfortable I couldn’t find it in me to make you move.” Sherlock says it so matter-of-factly, but then seems to lose his balance: “You can,” he says, “you can go back to it. If you like. You know.”

“I mean, I don’t want to impose—”

“Oh, no no no, it’s really, I mean, you did almost die. Er.” Sherlock clears his throat a little, still staring straight ahead. “For. For me.” He looks over tentatively, and John wants to reach out and pat his shoulder or something but his arms are still tucked under the blanket and his attempt to extricate them is a little too awkward and takes a little too long. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands, then, and sort of stares at them in his lap.

“Look, I should go to bed,” John says finally. “So should you.”

“You’re probably right, old boy.” Sherlock gets up and turns off the television and the room is suddenly much darker. The only light is from the open door to Sherlock’s room; the faint glow coming through the translucent curtains is negligible. John has no idea what time it is. As Sherlock readjusts the TV and crosses the living area to his own room, John gets up, or attempts to. His knees give out and he almost collapses but Sherlock is there, an arm around his back, slim fingers clutching at the fabric of John’s shirt. “Don’t go up those stairs tonight, sleep in my bed, I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“No, no, I can’t, I don’t want to…” but John trails off. The stairs seem intimidating and he is so tired. He goes over to Sherlock’s room and Sherlock follows him too closely. “I’m not going to fall over again, you know.”

“No, as a matter of fact I don’t know, and neither do you. Just. Get into bed.”

Sherlock’s room is controlled chaos. Stacks of books and papers cover the floor and desk and several bookcases and two milk crates that are being used as bookcases, and weird mementos and tchochkes and what looks like several dismantled radios take up every available flat surface. However, there are no clothes anywhere except in the closet, and all his shirts and jackets are hung perfectly neatly on hangers. John sits on the bed and it is not overly soft but it isn’t uncomfortable.

“If you need anything?” Sherlock pauses at the doorway. “Just. You know.” He turns off the light and closes the door most of the way but leaves it open a crack and John can barely hear him cross the living room to the couch. John lays there in the dark. Something electronic is humming.

John wakes up and the room is illuminated a little from a faint glow at the window, which is in the wrong place and his bed is not the right—he is in Sherlock’s room. It must be dawn. Someone is next to him. “Sherlock?”

Sherlock’s eyes open. “The couch was dreadfully uncomfortable, I hope you don’t mind.” Although John is under the covers, Sherlock is on top of them, curled with his knees near his chest, covered only by the orange fleece police blanket. “Go back to sleep, John.”

When John wakes up a second time, the room is lighter and sounds from the street filter quietly in. He and Sherlock are still facing each other, but Sherlock’s arm is over John’s waist and his other arm and John’s are intertwined, fingers gently relaxing against each other. John’s knee, bent slightly, is resting on top of Sherlock’s legs. John isn’t sure whether to edge away or not, mostly because sleeping Sherlock looks so peaceful. His lips are parted slightly and he is breathing lightly and regularly. His dark eyelashes twitch occasionally as his eyes watch some drama unfold on the insides of his closed eyelids.

Then John moves slightly and Sherlock sighs, eyes still closed, and the covers have been pushed down to John’s waist so he can feel the fingers of Sherlock’s hand curl in the fabric of the shirt at John’s back. Sherlock’s eyes open.

“Good morning,” John says, somewhat at a loss.

“Shall I make some breakfast?” Sherlock, as always, is impenetrable. He sits up and hops out of bed with a brisk (if, John thinks, somewhat panicked) movement. “Er.” He pauses in the doorway and looks back over his shoulder at John, who has barely moved. “Beans… on toast? Some sort of. Eggs? Something with eggs in?”

“Just tea.” John does not want to put Sherlock so out of his element as to take him up on his “offer” to make breakfast.

John shuffles up the stairs to his room and mechanically strips off his sweat-stiff clothes and gets in the shower without even thinking about what he’s doing. It is a good day for the water pressure and temperature and John is so, so grateful for the steam that fogs up his sliding glass door and tiny, already blurry mirror. The towel hanging on the rack is a little gross but he uses it anyway.

John puts on jeans but loses interest in getting dressed halfway through putting on an undershirt and just puts a zip-up sweater over it. Downstairs he can hear the daytime television that Sherlock is addicted to. He gets halfway down the stairs before he realizes that their floor is pretty gross and he hasn’t put on socks, but whatever, he goes down barefoot and sits in his chair, across from Sherlock.

“I don’t care what you think, I’m ready for a baby and I’m going to have one!” A teenager screams on the television program.

“Your tea,” Sherlock says, without taking his eyes off of the screen (without looking over at John). “You can change the channel if you like.”

John shrugs. His tea is almost unbearably strong, but he drinks it without adding anything out of habit. He notices that Sherlock is still wearing his shirt from yesterday and the night before, and has not taken a shower. “How much did you sleep last night?” he attempts to ask casually.

“Oh. You know.” Sherlock waves his hand about, vaguely but elegantly as always. “A bit.”

John knows this can mean anything from “an hour” to “fifteen minutes,” but not very much more. He squeezes his eyes shut very tightly for a moment.

“How about getting a bit of sleep now?” John asks.

Sherlock shrugs, as though confused as to why he should.

The last thing John wants is to have the conversation he’s about to start. Well, maybe he prefers that to getting blown up by some insane twentysomething who claims to control all the crimes that ever occur in London, or whatever. Sometimes John feels like he is too old for this shit.

“Look. Last night. I understand if you’re upset. Or whatever. There are a lot of things that I still… need to sort out. But you don’t have to, you know, shut it all up.” John chances a look over at Sherlock. “But that’s what you’re going to do anyway, because that’s what you always do,” he says, basically to himself since even if Sherlock is listening he obviously doesn’t give a damn.

“You don’t have to try to be my therapist, John.” The disdain in Sherlock’s voice is acidy and alienating. “To be a therapist you have to be able to outwit your patient, anyway.”

“Fuck off.” John stands up and grabs his shoes and jacket and can’t help slamming the door behind him when he leaves the living room to go downstairs and outside. He knows it’s childish, but he must be allowed to have some of these moments. This is unbearable. Sherlock is unbearable.

John goes to a pub. It is not empty, but it’s dimly lit and the sounds there are muted like they are in all good pubs. He gets a pint and sits at a booth in a corner and, to be completely honest, and even though he knows he won’t and maybe wouldn’t even be able to, he sort of wants to cry. That in and of itself is completely insane. With all he’s been through, a spat with his roommate is what sends him into a childish fit?

His stupid fucking roommate. It’s not just celestial bodies and current affairs that he’s clueless about, it’s other people, and, above all, it’s himself. He’s hideously self-absorbed but he’s also an emotionally stunted intellectual machine who denies that he feels the things that other, normal humans feel.

Jesus fucking Christ, though, John realizes. Sherlock has never had a friend before. Most people went through this process at the age of six when they learned to share cookies with their favorite classmate, but John cannot even imagine Sherlock at the age of six, much less sharing anything with anyone. Ever. Somehow his anger fades, although he knows that if Sherlock knew what he was thinking he would verbally crush John just to not be pitied any longer. Because that’s what John is feeling. Pity.

This is sick, John realizes as he finishes his beer. His emotionally stunted intellectual genius crime-solving roommate is making him crazy. He needs to stay with someone else for a while.

He can’t stay with Sarah, for a whole multitude of reasons, so he calls his sister and when she doesn’t pick up he leaves a stilted and awkward message for her. He knows that living with her will make him equally crazy, but for different reasons, and at least it will be a break from Sherlock. He knows that when she calls back she will say yes so he goes back to the flat to pack some things.

Sound from the TV is still filtering through the door but John can’t see Sherlock from the doorway, not until he sort of stands on his toes and sees Sherlock’s hunched form, curled up in his favorite chair. He is asleep and John almost lets out a breath of relief before he tells himself, No, this is not your problem any longer. Still, he skips the creaky step when he ascends the stairs to his room.

Sherlock wakes up a good forty five minutes later. John has been sitting in his chair, next to Sherlock’s, watching whatever is on TV, his duffle bag on the floor by his feet. His sister called back and said that of course he could stay, and he is going to leave as soon as Sherlock wakes up and John tells him not to expect him back for a while. He doesn’t know how long.

“You’re back,” Sherlock says.

“Not for long,” John replies. “I’m going to stay with my sister.”

“But you hate your sister,” Sherlock says, somewhat sleepily still.

“I don’t hate—” John pauses. “This is why. I just need to get away from this for a while.”

“Get away from what?” Sherlock looks genuinely confused.

“I need to go live in the real world, with people who have emotions,” John says. He picks up his bag and his coat. “I’ll be in touch.”

“John,” Sherlock says, but he doesn’t seem able to complete the thought. Then his face changes. “Right. Do what you want.” He directs his attention back to the TV and some sensationalist news report.

John leaves.

* * *

The first few days at Harry’s are fine. She really tries to hold back on the drinking and he really tries to hold back on the frowning-upon but when the weekend comes around and they are both around the flat all the time it is rough going. John doesn’t know where to go to get out and even if he did, he doesn’t know if he would have the energy or motivation to Go Out in the first place. They mostly watch TV.

On Tuesday morning, Mrs Hudson calls. “Hello, John, dear,” she says, and John is so glad to hear her voice. “How are… things going?”

“Oh, you know. Unemployed. How’s Baker Street?”

“John, you have to come back.” There is something of real urgency in her voice. “He’ll burn the whole building down, and it’s already to the point where I’ll never get the cigarette smell out of the carpets.”

“Oh, jeez, he’s smoking in there?” John asks.

“That’s not the worst of it,” Mrs Hudson says conspiratorially. “I think he’s using drugs.”

John presses his fingertips against closed eyelids. “Of course.”

“And he hasn’t taken on any cases in a week! John, he’s so—I’m worried about him.”

John pauses for a moment. “Did he… did he ask you to call me?”

“Er, no?” Mrs Hudson says.

“He did, didn’t he.”

“Well. Perhaps a little. John, dear, he misses you so terribly. And I am so worried. He’s not well.”

“When is he?” John murmurs. “All right,” he says. He does not want to admit to himself how glad he is to be returning to Baker St., not only because it is away from Harry or because it is home, but to see Sherlock again. God knows he’d never admit it but he had missed his insane roommate so acutely. “I’ll see you soon,” he tells her, and goes to get his things and leave a note for his sister.

It is evening before he gets back to 221B Baker St. Winter is letting up so it’s still faintly light out, but the streetlights have been on for some time. Mrs Hudson greets him at the door.

“Oh, John,” she says, and hugs him warmly. The hall smells rather awfully of cigarette smoke. She stands on her toes before she pulls back from the hug: “He’ll be so glad you’re back,” she whispers into his ear.

The stairs creak a little bit, as though they are unused to being trodden upon, at least by someone of his weight. He drops his bag just outside the door to the living area, and eases it open.

“Good God, Sherlock, do you intend to kill us all?” An actual curl of smoke passes by him in the air current the open door creates. “Have some decency, is it even legal to smoke indoors anymore?”

“This is a private residence,” Sherlock’s voice says from his room. “We can do whatever we bloody well please.”

“I’m pretty sure majority rules here, and Mrs Hudson and I agree—”

“Well you weren’t here, were you?” Sherlock responds cattily. Finally, John stands in the doorway of Sherlock’s room. There are several overfull ashtrays on tables and piles of books, and a box of nicotine patches on the desk that has spilled onto the floor. Sherlock is sitting cross-legged in the middle of the room, a book balanced on his legs. An unlit cigarette dangles from his lips. “Do you have a light?”

“Of course I don’t have a light, Sherlock, I don’t smoke. And as your flatmate I would seriously appreciate it if you wouldn’t smoke indoors any longer.”

Sherlock regards him silently for a moment. “So you’re coming back,” he says, a little uncertainly.

“I’m back,” John says simply. “Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to open up a few windows.” Before he turns his back on the room, Sherlock’s eyes close and his shoulders move as though he is heaving a great sigh, though John hesitates to guess as to its origins.

Sherlock migrates to his chair as John opens the last window, and John sits in his chair and except for the oppressive atmosphere in the room things feel normal, again, finally.

“Do you want to watch a Top Gear marathon?” Sherlock asks, flipping on the TV.

John stares. “You hate Top Gear.”

Sherlock shrugs. “Yeah, but you like it.”

“You’ll watch it with me?” John tries not to stare in disbelief.

“Sure. That’s what we need, isn’t it, some of that roommate bonding thing.”

“Did Mrs Hudson tell you that?”

Sherlock is silent. She absolutely did, John thinks.

At the first commercial break, Sherlock speaks. “That whole pool incident took me rather by surprise.” It’s clear that he has been scripting this in his head for some time. “I don’t have friends because I don’t need them, I never have. So I apologize if I don’t treat you like that. Like one. Like a friend. Because you are. We are friends,” he says this last part almost tentatively, as though about to add an “aren’t we?”

“Of course, Sherlock.” Sherlock is looking somewhere between the TV screen and John’s knee, not completely away from John but not directly at him either. John is struck by a somewhat wild urge to look him in the eye.

“So,” Sherlock says.

“So,” says John. They watch TV for a while. “Have you slept at all?”

“Oh, you know…”

“So that’s a no. Come on, I’m putting you to bed.”

“It’s barely eight o’clock,” Sherlock says.

“Yes, and?” John says. “Come on.” He stands and reaches a hand down which Sherlock clasps with somewhat more force than is necessary to get up from the chair.

“Are you going to make me brush my teeth too, Mummy?” Sherlock asks somewhat acerbically, but the really acid tone he might have had a week ago seems to have gone the way of his catlike personal hygiene habits and heartfelt commitment to nicotine patches.

“Just get in bed, you brat,” John says to him. Sherlock is sitting cross-legged on the edge of his bed as John leaves the room and goes to turn out the lights in the living room. Before going upstairs he is compelled to look in on Sherlock one more time.

“Er,” Sherlock says.

“Yes?”

“It’s. Oh.”

“What is it?”

“I missed.”

John steps into the room and sits on the bed next to Sherlock, and he takes a moment to drag his eyes away from his hands resting uncomfortably on his knees and when he finally looks over at Sherlock something happens.

Suddenly they are kissing, John’s hand is between them on the bed and when Sherlock drags them closer together it is trapped under Sherlock’s thigh, and John drags it out and clutches at Sherlock’s hip, touches Sherlock’s skin under his untucked shirt. Sherlock’s mouth is hot and insistent and his teeth are a little too much and he might be drawing blood from John’s lip as he bites it, repeatedly, as though trying to consume John there through their mouths. John feels a little pull of air by his cheek as Sherlock breathes in sharply and he can feel the breath out against and inside his mouth, and he pulls it away from Sherlock and uses the hand that is fisted in the shirt material at Sherlock’s collar to push Sherlock down onto his back.

John climbs on top of Sherlock, sort of awkwardly, trying not to knee him in the waist or leg and when he can he grinds their hips together, only a little bit since he is still sort of kneeling above Sherlock and Sherlock’s legs are hanging off the side of the bed so if he stretched out he would slide them both onto the floor. There is pressure and it is sweet and Sherlock twists up against John and makes a little noise in the back of his throat (John is surprised at this).

John kind of thinks they should stop and figure out what is going on, but he doesn’t think that strongly enough to actually stop licking into Sherlock’s mouth or to have Sherlock stop clutching one hand at the back of John’s neck. Sherlock tastes of cigarettes and not much else, really, and John pulls himself away from Sherlock’s lips only to bury his face in Sherlock’s neck, the pale skin there stubbled enough to scratch strangely against John’s nose. (John is not completely inexperienced with men, but his encounters prior to this had been somewhat less enthusiastic than this.) Sherlock tastes of sweat and something sweet, which John cannot place, but he cannot seem to get enough of it and he shoves the collar of Sherlock’s shirt to the side and drags his teeth across the skin there.

John wants to fuck him, he wants this kind of a lot, but he is afraid it might be too much too soon and he so desperately does not want to mess this up. He unbuttons Sherlock’s shirt and pushes it off those pale bony shoulders as much as he can, and when Sherlock sits up a little so John can remove his shirt entirely Sherlock pauses. He looks at John seriously, propped on one elbow, a hand on John’s chest and John can feel Sherlock’s knees pressing at his hips, Sherlock’s legs are so close to wrapping around his waist. “Is this what you want?” he asks, and John is taken aback by the consideration that Sherlock is able to take that John, apparently, isn’t.

John isn’t sure how to answer: of course, god, yes, please, is what he wants to say, but he doesn’t know if there is a wrong answer here and he is full of equal parts desire and apprehension. “This is—yes. Please.” And John knows there is no going back: Sherlock unbuttons his shirt with his pale slim fingers and John doesn’t think he’s ever seen them tremble before.

Sherlock rolls them over so that John is now on his back, and keeping his nose and lips close to John’s body he drags himself down until he is kneeling on the floor in front of John; John sits up. Sherlock unbuttons his jeans, shoves his underwear down.

John comes sort of embarrassingly quickly, and Sherlock rests his face on John’s thigh for a moment while John breathes. Sherlock’s cheek feels hot where it touches John’s skin.

“Do you want me to—?” John asks.

“In time.” Sherlock looks disheveled and corrupted and beautiful. He smiles, one of his actual real smiles that John sees so rarely. “We do have all night.”


End file.
